FULL BIO
Josh Mantz is an inspirational speaker, breathworker, and best-selling author focused on consciousness and transformation.
He's a graduate of West Point’s “Class of 9/11” and served as an Infantry officer in the United States Army for 10 years. He’s a recipient of the Purple Heart, Bronze Star with Valor, and Combat Infantryman’s Badge and is one of 25 Veterans whose combat experience is featured in the National Veterans Memorial and Museum.
Josh served as a platoon leader in eastern Baghdad during the height of counterinsurgency operations in the Middle East. It was during this deployment that he and his partner were critically wounded during a sniper attack. Josh died for 15 minutes before being revived. This was the experience that laid the foundation for his current work in consciousness studies.
Josh later served as an Aide-de-Camp and participated in a national speaking circuit to reduce stigma associated with psychological trauma. During this time, he conducted hundreds of interviews and speaking events and appeared on several national media outlets including CNN, BBC, and FOX News. As a company commander, his work with trauma was captured in two documentaries including The Vietnam War by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick and Invisible Wounds of War by Lisa Ling. Josh’s influence in the field of trauma has continued ever since.
In 2015, Josh transitioned from military service and brought his leadership experience to the private sector. He spent 18 months at Tesla as an HR business partner. He built the company's leadership development program and trained more than 750 manufacturing and engineering leaders across the US and Europe. He led a team of 5 HR business partners responsible for the HR management of more than 2000 employees and also made a significant contribution to Tesla’s first global employee engagement program. It was here that Josh came to recognize the universality of trauma and the impact of mental health in the workplace.
Josh then joined Acadia Healthcare – the country’s largest behavioral health treatment company – where he continued to deepen his understanding of trauma, addiction, and substance abuse. He expanded his work in psychological trauma to first responder populations and also into the recovery community. This period of his life culminated with the delivery of a TEDx Talk in Santo Domingo on moral trauma and the publication of his first book, The Beauty of a Darker Soul, which was released in 2018 and quickly became a #1 best-seller on Amazon.
Today, Josh is among the nation’s leading speakers on adversity, consciousness, and personal growth. He attained a master’s degree in Philosophy, Consciousness, and Cosmology from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco in 2019 and is currently pursuing a PhD in the same. His dissertation focuses on comparing the phenomenology of three different states of non-ordinary consciousness, including death, breathwork, and psychedelics.
He lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he’s completing his dissertation and preparing for the publication of his next book, expected in 2023.
